The government is to provide restaurants with official translations of Chinese food names to avoid embarrassing translations.
Name that dish Image: YC_Lai |
Foreigners have long been accustomed to haphazardly translated, incomprehensible food names scattered across diner menus throughout the middle kingdom. So, Beijing has decided to take a stand against inaccuracy by publishing the “Cuisine Translation Guide: How to Translate Chinese Menus Into English”.
The flawless new crib sheet is part of a joint campaign between the Municipal Office of Foreign Affairs and the “Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages” Office, which has been battling so called 'Chinglish' in a bid to increase to nation's international profile.
Among the most heinous linguistic offenders from the 2,158 names of dishes were: “Yu Xiang Rou Si” - previously “Fish Stinking Pork Silk”, now “Fragrant Shredded Pork”; “Hong Shao Shizi Tou” - transformed from “Red Burning Lion Head”, to the slightly less dramatic “Braised Pork Ball in Brown Sauce”; while “Tong Zi Ji” has now become “Spring Chicken”, instead of the bizarre “Chicken Without Sex”.
The new list will also help promote knowledge of Chinese culture. For example, “Baozi” and “Jiaozi”, formerly categorised under the same name, “dumpling”, have been left in pinyin to increase awareness of the differences between the two delicious meat parcels.
With English becoming increasingly important in China, the government hopes that there will be, eventually, more English speakers in China than in every English speaking country in the world combined. Chinese students must attain a certain mastery of English if they are to pass the tough “Gao Kao” examinations for university, which had driven the estimated value of China's Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) industry up to a heady $3.1 billion in 2010.